


Not Just Another Park Bench

by Goldy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 17:11:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1825888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She knows she’s too early because she’s found him.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Just Another Park Bench

**Title** : Not Just Another Park Bench  
 **Disclaimer** : Does it need saying? :D  
 **Pairing** : Nine/Rose, but S4 canon compliant.  
 **Summary** : _She knows she’s too early because she’s found him._  
 **Spoilers** : Through S4.  
 **Rating** : PG  
 **Word Count** : 1,214  
 **A/N** : I know. I wrote Nine/Rose fic. You might need to sit down.

Thanks to [](http://shinyopals.livejournal.com/profile)[**shinyopals**](http://shinyopals.livejournal.com/) for the beta and for making sure yet again that I didn’t go and stomp all over British culture. *smushes*

She’s too early.

It’s Halloween. Girls dressed as witches and boys as vampires run by her, hands clutching candy bags as their frazzled parents grip tightly to umbrellas and struggle to keep up with them. Rose buries into her jacket, nose cold and wet from the drizzling rain.

She knows she’s too early because she’s found him.

He’s sitting on a park bench, arms slung over the back of it, and his blank stare barely registering the to-and-fro of children after sweets. But his gaze is focused, like he’s contemplating a problem too complex for the rest of the world to understand. He has short hair and a black leather jacket and he hasn’t met her yet.

She knows she shouldn’t go to him. She should turn around and go, but it’s the _Doctor_ and she’s spent years looking for him, and how can she turn around now? Her heartbeat rings in her ears and her hands are shaking, but all the same, she takes a seat next to him.

“Hi,” she says, tentatively, trying not to seem like she’s staring. But he was so different back then, back before Chucks and ties and hair gel. She’d almost forgotten. It’s all a long blur in her head – Cassandra and Gelth and Daleks and Cyberman – and isn’t that the point, anyway, that he’s the same man underneath it all?

He takes a breath, barely looks at her, and says, “What do you want?”

She has to smile to herself, remembering “ _Run for your life_ ” and “ _Forget me, Rose Tyler_ ” and most importantly, “ _Did I mention it also travels in time_?”

“I never went out trick-or-treating,” she says, ignoring his gruff tone. “My Mum said that it was too dangerous on the Estate. When I was thirteen, she threw this party – she started at three in the afternoon, so she didn't notice when I snuck out dressed like a pirate. I stayed at a mate’s overnight. She didn’t talk to me for two weeks afterwards.”

He’s looking at her now, looking at her in that slightly baffled way she remembers from him, back before the regeneration. It makes her ache inside and she thinks about shifting closer to him, of maybe even asking him for a hug. She always figured that would happen first thing—find the Doctor, hug the Doctor, _then_ think about saving the universe. But he hasn’t met her and hasn’t lost her yet, so she’s just going to have to be brave and wait.

 _Miles to go_ , she reminds herself and swallows past the lump in her throat.

“What’s your name?” he says, eyeing her up and down in a way that makes her blush. She doesn’t know how he does it—makes her feel nineteen again with a single look. But she’s twenty-five and this isn’t the year five billion and the last thing she remembers from him is an unfinished sentence on a beach in Norway.

She ignores his question, her eyes flicking over his hunched shoulders and the emptiness in his blue eyes. “What’s wrong?” she says. He blinks at her in surprise, and she shrugs, “You look sad, is all.”

She knows exactly what’s wrong, of course. Time Wars and Daleks and “ _I’m the only one left._ ” She aches for him all over again. This, she realizes, this is what he was like before he met her. Her hand reaches out, stretches towards his before she remembers and pulls it back. Instead, she clasps her hands in her lap, fingers tightening and pulling against each other.

“I know you,” he answers without answering (she doesn’t think one of them has given a straight response yet). “Or will, one day.”

“How’d you know?”

“I’m very clever.”

She snorts and he grins at her, eyes crinkling.

That’s a bit like being handed a gift, that is. One smile feels like enough to bolster her motivation to keep searching until she finds him. Park bench, she thinks, Halloween, quarter-past six in the evening.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, but he’s still smiling. “Two of us in one place…”

“I know, a paradox,” she says, with a roll of her eyes. “You know, half the time I think you’re just making it up.”

He puffs out his chest a bit—it’s so arrogant and insecure and so, so _him_ —and says, “Oh, I know what I’m talking about. And you…” he shifts closer, peering into her face, “there are all sorts of readings coming off you.”

He’s too close. Way… too close. It almost feels like she’s being disloyal when she tilts her head closer still, nose almost hitting his. God, this is confusing—this being in love with an alien who can travel in time _and_ change his face. Unfair of him, really.

“I thought we were gonna talk about you,” she says because there’s still sadness lurking behind his eyes, underneath the smile and the crinkling eyes. Absurdly, all she can think about is how she’d quite like to cuddle him. She’s also certain there’s nothing that would get him running away faster—and that _includes_ her Mum’s pot roast. That’d come a bit later, all the hugging and dinners at home, and _god_ , how she misses him.

He stares at her another moment longer and then turns away. “There’s nothing to say.”

He’s back to gruff and Rose tries not to feel hurt. He doesn’t even _know_ her yet, she reminds herself. Besides, who knows how long it’s been since the Time War? It could be hours or days or months. He might not be ready to talk about it yet.

Still…

She unclasps her hands from her lap and touches his arm, just under his shoulder. She lets her hand linger there. His jacket is cold and wet under her palm, but she hopes he can feel the warmth from her hand on his skin.

“Doctor.”

He turns to look at her again, with a gaze that’s haunted and curious and devastated and thankful.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” she says, putting as much feeling and sincerity into her words as she can muster.

His eyes fill and he looks away again. Rose lets her hand linger a moment longer and then draws it back. She pushes herself to her feet. She’s shaking and she tells herself it’s because of the cold and rain.

“I’ve… I’ve go to go,” she says, even though every part of her is screaming not to leave him alone when he’s like this. He’ll find her soon enough, she reminds herself. And she has her own work to do.

He doesn’t acknowledge her. She plays with one of her earrings, hesitating, before saying, “There’s this… this girl. This shopgirl. She works at Henrik’s. And very soon, she might need someone to save her from the Autons.”

He can’t stop his smile, his I’m-so-brilliant smile. Some things about him never change. She hopes for a “fantastic,” but he settles for a gentle sounding, “I think you’ve probably said enough.”

“Yeah,” Rose admits. She lets her eyes linger on him, not quite ready to tear herself away. “I’ll be seeing you, then, Doctor.”


End file.
